


Revision

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Dubious Morality, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Medical Kink, No Plot/Plotless, Obsession, Partnership, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22051936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Stein doesn’t reach out for Spirit’s soul wavelength anymore, doesn’t miss that mental step when there is nothing around him but the roar of his own incessant thoughts; but he still remembers, and when he feels the visitor approaching there is no need for conscious thought to recognize the wavelength when Stein’s whole body tenses in instinctive response to the distant, ghostly awareness of it." Stein has a visitor and an old dynamic is redefined.
Relationships: Spirit Albarn | Death Scythe/Franken Stein
Comments: 24
Kudos: 232
Collections: One-Shot Goldmine





	Revision

Stein can feel Spirit coming.

He’s not looking for him. There was a time, when they were students together, when they were partners together, that Stein could have pointed to Spirit at any moment of the day, that some part of his attention was always given over to following the glow of his weapon’s soul wavelength through the course of his daily trajectory through the Academy and the city. One of the hardest things about leaving Death City, Stein thinks, was breaking his habit of reaching out to feel where Spirit was, when he would stretch out his awareness for the stability of his partner and find himself falling unsupported instead. It’s been years since then, what sometimes feels like a lifetime since he lost the only weapon that has ever really been his, and Stein has taught himself to work around the absence, has rebuilt himself into a form that can function without the steadying force of his weapon constantly to hand. He doesn’t reach out for Spirit’s soul wavelength anymore, doesn’t miss that mental step when there is nothing around him but the roar of his own incessant thoughts; but he still remembers, and when he feels the visitor approaching there is no need for conscious thought to recognize the wavelength when Stein’s whole body tenses in instinctive response to the distant, ghostly awareness of it.

He doesn’t come to wait at the door. He used to do that when they were students together, even after Spirit complained about having Stein open doors for him a moment before he had managed to knock; but it’s been long years since Stein had any expectation of a visitor, and longer still since he had any trace of this one. He goes still instead, gazing unseeing at the glow of the computer screen before him as his vision flickers with Soul Perception and he watches Spirit come closer, beyond the edge of the city and across the distance leading to the lab, and even when there is no question where he is bound Stein doesn’t move, just stares at the curl of smoke rising from the cigarette at his lips and watches Spirit’s wavelength draw into greater clarity. Spirit comes up the hill, past the tangled trees, right up to the front of the laboratory; and then there is a knock, clear and loud enough that Stein can hear it echo down the empty corridors, and Stein takes a last drag of nicotine and gets to his feet, leaning in to crush his cigarette out in the ashtray before he leaves the desk behind him to step out into the hallway and make his way to the front door.

It takes him some time to make it down the hallway, but there is no follow-up knock. Stein wonders if it’s the flaw of his own sense of time, his own rushing heartbeat that makes the duration of his travel stretch long with every thud of his shoes at the floor, or if it’s that Spirit can feel him coming too. Spirit has never had Soul Perception, has never picked up on the radiance of the wavelengths that hover at the periphery of Stein’s vision whether he wants to see them or not; but there is more to partnership than logic, and theirs is one that has remained unaltered by the passage of a decade and long years of bitter silence. Stein felt the ease of the Resonance they dropped into, felt the near-relief they shared at fitting their wavelengths into a single, greater whole, and there is no question that Spirit felt it too, not when they spent that span sharing a single existence.

Spirit is looking back down the hill when Stein opens the door. His hands are in his pockets, his suit jacket pushed back by his wrists; he’s standing on Stein’s doorstep but his head is turned, his gaze cast back to the winding streets of Death City laid out like a map by the distance and elevation to which the lab rises. Stein looks at the wave of Spirit’s hair, fits his gaze to the outline of a caress trailing over the vivid color of the locks brushing against the dark of the other’s jacket, and it’s only after the familiar tension in his chest has entirely eased with this proof of Spirit’s presence that he speaks.

“Did you need something, senpai?”

Spirit jumps and turns at once. His motion is so fast that Stein wonders for a moment if he’s going to lose his balance and fall from the effect of the surprise; and then Spirit is staring at him, and Stein forgets all his curiosity about everything else. Spirit’s eyes are wide, their color as bright as the glow of the desert sky overhead, his mouth soft and lips parted on the breath of shock that comes with Stein’s speech. He’s dressed as a Death Weapon, wrapped in a formality that Stein has yet to see him without since their renewed acquaintance; but the surprise in his face sends Stein back a dozen years, tumbling into the past with such speed that for a moment he forgets when he is, forgets what he has done, forgets everything except that he is a meister, and Spirit is his weapon, and that he has his partner back.

“Stein,” Spirit blurts, still sounding as shocked as he used to when they were students, before he had cast himself into the mold of what he thought a model Death Scythe should be. He stares at Stein for a breath, his eyes wide and expression soft with shock, before he blinks and visibly struggles himself back into the role he believes he ought to play. “I need to talk to you.”

Stein draws back into the lab by a step so he can make an invitation of the held-open door. The interior is cast into gray and black by Stein’s inattention to illumination, he knows it is hardly a welcoming space; but Spirit doesn’t so much as hesitate before turning to come through the door and into the laboratory that he hasn’t been inside in over a decade. Stein can feel the effect of the other’s presence shiver in the air, a painless electricity passing through the spreading corridors and supporting walls of the space like the adrenaline that has been bleeding itself through his own veins since he laid eyes on Spirit again. Stein doesn’t shudder with the force -- he lets it pass through him to ground him out against the steady support of his feet at the floor -- but when he lets the door swing shut in Spirit’s wake the usual  _ click _ of the latch sounds brighter in his ears, and the dim light of the hallway seems to glow with greater illumination just for the company he has.

Spirit gusts a sigh from farther up the hallway where his wandering feet have carried him. “It’s pitch black in here,” he complains. It’s not -- Stein can see Spirit well enough to pick out the curl of his hair against the shadow of his jacket, even without dropping into the Soul Perception that would flood the hallway with the warmth of his partner’s soul wavelength -- but he doesn’t protest the inaccuracy. Spirit shifts to look back over his shoulder and frown at Stein. “Don’t you have anywhere with more light?”

Stein lifts his hand to his mouth, reaching for the cigarette he usually has braced there and finding only the soft of his lips instead. It’s only in the contact of his hand against his mouth that he can feel the tremor running through his fingers, shivering energy through his arm to course heat through him that is no less familiar for being such a remnant of his past. Stein lets his hand drop to his side so he can push it safely into the pocket of his lab coat. “There’s the operating room.”

Spirit scoffs in the back of his throat. “Great,” he says. “Of course. I don’t know what else I expected.” His tone is bladed sharp with sarcasm, but he’s turning to move down the hallway without waiting for a reply, and Stein follows him without needing an invitation.

Spirit takes them straight through the lab, with no hesitation over the turnings that carry him through the maze of corridors and to his end goal. Stein wonders if Spirit even realizes he’s doing it, if he’s aware of how much familiarity he’s carrying in even the steady pace of his steps bearing him forward or if it’s some unacknowledged intuition that has claimed this as well as so much of Spirit’s life. His soul remembers, no matter how many years have passed; the idea makes Stein feel distracted from himself, as if he’s losing the hold on reality that he has so carefully constructed for himself. He feels himself a student again, trailing his weapon partner through the laboratory that has only ever been a home when Spirit is within it, and when Spirit steps forward to push open the door to the operating room Stein follows to reach for the row of light switches built into the wall. The overhead lights come on, flooding the room with the white brilliance of perfect illumination, and Spirit flinches and looks up to grimace at the fixtures overhead.

“Death, that’s bright,” he mumbles. “You couldn’t use some of these in the rest of the place?”

“High visibility is most important here,” Stein tells him. “A mistake on the operating table has the potential for the worst consequences.”

Spirit snorts. “I guess I can’t argue with you on that.”

He doesn’t look back to Stein standing at the doorway. Spirit’s head is turned aside, his hair falling in front of his face so Stein can’t get a good look at his expression, and he doesn’t make the effort. The whole room is glowing with light; it’s enough for Stein to lean back against the edge of the doorway as he watches Spirit pace forward to frown at the operating table, and the glass-fronted steel cabinets of supplies, and the tools laid out with careful precision on trays around the room. Spirit pauses over the last, his head ducked forward to consider them so long Stein wonders if he’s going to reach out to press his fingers to the mirror-bright handles of the array of scalpels; but in the end he just turns on his heel, coming back towards the middle of the space as he paces around the far side of the operating table between himself and Stein.

“This is a lot cleaner than I expected it to be,” he says, his head still tipped up so he’s looking more towards the ceiling than at Stein.

Stein doesn’t look away from Spirit’s face. He doesn’t think he’s really looked at anything else since he first felt that glimmer of a familiar wavelength coming up the hill towards the laboratory. “Were you expecting something else?”

“I guess so,” Spirit says. “I always pictured…”

His words trail off but Stein doesn’t need to hear the statement to know what Spirit is thinking. “Rusty saws and bloodstained lab coats?” he suggests.

Spirit snorts. “Yeah, basically.”

The corner of Stein’s mouth tugs towards a smile. “I’m not quite that unhinged,” he says, and lifts a hand to adjust his glasses. “I do keep my experimentation sterile, at least.”

“That’s a comfort,” Spirit says. He sounds like he’s sarcastic but Stein doesn’t need to blink into Soul Perception to feel the glow of sincerity radiating off the other. He wonders if Spirit is aware of his own feelings. He wonders what he might do, if he were.

Spirit continues pacing around the operating room. It’s as if he’s making up for Stein’s stillness, like his feet are acting out the anxious energy that Stein can feel thrumming beneath his skin and trembling at his hands where they are safely pressed into his pockets. Spirit’s gaze is flickering around them, jumping from shelf to wall to floor as he moves, and Stein watches him, lingering in the familiar motion of Spirit’s shoulders underneath the dark of his jacket and the color of his hair catching the illumination to vibrant crimson. It’s satisfying just to have Spirit here at all, regardless of what he is or isn’t doing, and it’s just as Spirit turns to pace along the far side of the room that he speaks, his voice clear and carrying over the sound of his footsteps.

“I can’t believe you used to do experiments on me,” he says. There’s some tension to his voice but far less in his expression than there might be; he looks almost nostalgic as he turns his head to look around the space of the room. “I’ve had nightmares about you for a decade.”

Stein doesn’t answer. Spirit is still moving, still pacing out that nervous energy; and there’s nothing he can say, not when Spirit is just stating a basic fact. He tips his head instead, gauging the set of Spirit’s jaw, the angle of his shoulders, the tension in his face, before he blinks and lets his vision fall into the hazy focus of Soul Perception.

“I said I hated you,” Spirit says, the words tumbling over his lips like he’s hurrying to get them free. “All this time. Ever since I left you, I said…” His voice trails off. His feet scuff to a stop at the floor. Stein watches Spirit’s head duck, watches his hair fall to a heavy shadow in front of his face; and he watches his soul wavelength glow, radiating the same warmth that is spilling electricity through Stein’s veins and returning life to a form that has spent too long chilled by his own isolation.

“You  _ experimented _ on me,” Spirit says. “In my  _ sleep_. I might have never known, if it weren’t for Kami. You would never have stopped if I hadn’t left.” He shakes his head hard. “You’re the  _ last _ person I should trust.”

Stein’s fingers flex in his pocket, reaching for a cigarette, or for a lock of red hair to smooth like silk between his fingers. “But you do anyway.”

Spirit lifts his head sharply to look at Stein. “Stop looking at my wavelength,” he snaps. Stein blinks his Perception back out of focus but he doesn’t think he needed it to realize what Spirit was struggling to say. His weapon’s face has always been an open book, ready to share every detail of Spirit’s feelings with the world at large, and the conflict creasing at the corners of the other’s eyes and set at his lips is as perfectly clear on the man’s face as it was on the boy’s. Spirit stares at Stein for a minute, his expression so tense he would be glaring if his eyes didn’t look so soft, and Stein draws a breath and lifts his chin.

“You can’t help how you feel,” he says calmly. “Even if you think you shouldn’t.” Stein lifts a shoulder in a shrug and brings his hand free of his pocket to brush his fingers idly across his mouth again, reaching for a familiar friction he lacks. “You’re still my weapon, senpai.”

Spirit stares at Stein for a long moment. His expression is still tight; Stein thinks about shifting back into Soul Perception, just to reach for a hint of what emotions are fighting with such strength just behind the blue of the other’s eyes. Stein lets his hand fall from his mouth, tips his head to the side; and Spirit steps forward, moving in long strides to cover the distance of the room between them. It only takes him three steps, with the last one cut off halfway as he draws up directly in front of Stein, and his hands are coming up as quickly to close to fists against the lapels of Stein’s lab coat. Stein goes slack to Spirit’s hold and lets himself be pulled with boneless ease, and when Spirit turns his head Stein is rewarded with the heat of Spirit’s mouth crushing against his own.

It’s just force, for a moment. Spirit’s eyes are squeezed shut and his fingers are clenching to fists so tight that Stein can feel them trembling against the tension the other is exerting on his jacket; there’s no elegance to the press of his lips, just the demand of his mouth setting hard upon Stein’s own. They stand still together, Stein tipped back against the doorframe behind him and Spirit making a plea of the line of his body, of the angle of his shoulders, of the hold of his fingers reaching for desperate traction. He is begging for support, shaking with the need for it, with the want anxious in every part of him; and Stein lifts his hands from his sides, and he presses his hold to fixed certainty against his weapon.

Spirit stumbles backwards to Stein’s hold. Stein has laid his fingers to steady weight around Spirit’s arms, high near his shoulders where he can get the most traction for his grip, and Spirit tips back as quickly as Stein straightens over him, his balance giving way before Stein has even asked for it. Spirit’s surrender draws Stein forward, brings him stepping in to keep them both upright as Spirit leans back into his hold, and Stein tips his head as they move, turning to lean deeper into the give of Spirit’s mouth as he takes a step forward to carry Spirit back across the room. Spirit’s lips part immediately, without Stein so much as breathing intention, and Stein takes the invitation and slides his tongue back into the heat of Spirit’s mouth. Spirit groans in the back of his throat, his chest giving up reflexive heat as his fingers tighten and pull at Stein’s coat, and Stein comes forward in turn, giving as quickly as Spirit’s hold asks. His hands push, his feet advance, and when Spirit runs up against the edge of the table behind him Stein presses in immediately, surging forward to push Spirit back and down beneath the shadow of his shoulders.

Spirit falls back to sprawl across the cool surface of the operating table, and Stein leans over him immediately, freeing one of his hands from Spirit’s arm to grip at the edge of the table instead as he pins the other beneath him. Spirit’s mouth eases, his lips parting wider as he meets the slide of Stein’s tongue with the heat of his own, and when Stein’s hips shift closer Spirit’s knees tilt open into instinctive welcome. Stein leans in against him, letting his body follow the guidance suggested by Spirit’s, and as his weight presses down Spirit arches up, his lips parting from Stein’s only long enough to allow a groan to spill up his throat. Stein watches Spirit’s face, gazing at the shift of the other’s lashes over his eyes and the motion of heat working in his throat, and when Spirit gasps another breath Stein comes in to lay his mouth close against the other’s and pin him down while he leans in to grind his hips hard against Spirit’s.

It is Spirit who lets his hold go first. One hand he frees to reach up and clutch around Stein’s neck, holding as tightly as if he’s afraid of losing the man who has spent the greater part of his life waiting for him; the other he drops down, following the open front of Stein’s coat to the other’s waist before jumping across to urge his palm against the front of Stein’s pants. His motion is too desperate to show any real grace, it brings more demanding force than teasing friction, but Stein doesn’t raise so much as an eyebrow in protest. He rocks forward instead, offering the ready encouragement of his arousal pressing in against the cradle of Spirit’s open palm, and beneath him Spirit shudders an exhale and pulls his hand up to push roughly at the button of Stein’s pants. Stein watches Spirit’s face for a moment, more interested in the dip of the other’s lashes and the focus in the catch of white teeth against curving lip than in the frantic urging of fingers unfastening his pants; and then he leans down to press his face against the side of Spirit’s neck, and lifts his hand to reach down for Spirit’s clothes in turn.

He doesn’t need to look at what he’s doing. Stein has thought about this enough times that he thinks he could do it blindfolded, without ever seeing any more of Spirit than the shape of the soul wavelength that has become such a foundation for his existence, such a stable point for a psyche that is anything but. Spirit’s suit jacket falls open as soon as Stein pushes the button free, his belt buckle slips loose as if to offer a welcome of its own; by the time Spirit has tugged Stein’s pants open Stein has the other’s clothes laid out around him to offer the opportunity of bare skin. Spirit is breathing hard against him, Stein can hear the sound of the other’s inhales rasping against his ear and tangling into his hair; he listens to the catch of it, hearing the rhythm echoed back in the thunder of his heart rushing blood through his veins, before he presses his fingers up to slide under Spirit’s shirt.

The recognition is instant. It has been years past a decade, with silence enough to accumulate to stilted self-consciousness in every interaction they have and every struggling conversation; but Stein knows the shape of Spirit’s wavelength, and he knows the shade of his hair, and he knows the feel of the other’s skin drawing glowing friction over the reach of his fingers. Stein drags a breath into his lungs, pulling heat from Spirit’s shoulder as his hand presses up to brace against the flat of the other’s stomach, and around his neck Spirit’s arm tightens as the other huffs a breath.

“I told you,” he says, sounding more breathless than irritated. “The scars are gone, they all faded years ago.”

Stein breathes out. He can taste Spirit against his lips as he sets the air free. “I know,” he says, and pushes his hand up higher to feel out the curve of Spirit’s lowest ribs, to trace the soft of skin over the glow of blood coursing hot through his veins, to feel the shiver of tension in muscle flexing taut under the weight of his touch. “I don’t need the scars to remember.” Spirit’s fingers flex to fist against the collar of Stein’s coat, but he doesn’t protest, and as Stein’s hand pushes up across his chest Spirit breathes out with force enough to carry the faint impulse of a whimper up his throat. Stein can feel Spirit’s heart racing under the weight of his palm, can feel the warmth of the other’s body radiating out to chase away the chill in his own, and when he breathes in he can feel the fire of Spirit’s presence rippling down into him to color all his dim grays to vivid red.

Stein takes his time. It’s been too long since he pressed his palms directly against his weapon’s bare skin; the memory is so keen he can almost smell the iron tang of blood in the air just from the flex of Spirit’s body working under his touch. But Spirit is older now, taller and broader and  _ awake_, responsive in a way Stein could never allow him to be when he was laid out for experimentation, and Stein feels his own body tensing in reaction to the shudders that run through Spirit as Stein’s fingers play across him to map the span of his waist and track the pull of muscle across his stomach and along his spine. Spirit trembles for Stein’s touch, his body crafting a symphony in answer to the weight of Stein’s weapon-callused fingers dragging across him, and Stein’s body is responding in kind, rising to an immediate, insistent heat like it is learning the feel of arousal from the sounds in Spirit’s throat and the grip of his fingers at Stein’s collar. Stein trails his hands over his weapon’s body, revisiting the motion of muscle and bone under his questing fingers, until finally Spirit gusts a breath and reaches to push his hand down against the unfastened front of Stein’s pants. His fingers dip under cloth, his hand stretches to cross the distance, and when his touch lands Stein’s whole body jerks in response, tightening into a ripple of sensation in answer to no more than the glancing contact of Spirit’s fingers against him.

Spirit breathes out hard. “What do you want to do, Stein?” The words are clear but his voice is high, drawing breathless on tension even as he reaches for a better point of contact against the other.

Stein turns his head against Spirit’s neck. Spirit tips his head fractionally to the side to bare the line of his throat and Stein shuts his eyes and draws a breath against the exposed skin. “You know, senpai.”

Stein can feel Spirit’s exhale ruffle against his hair. “Yeah,” Spirit says. “Of course I know. I’m your partner, aren’t I?”

Stein smiles. “Always.”

“So.” Spirit takes a breath, drawing a deep inhale that flexes against the weight of Stein’s palm resting heavy against him, and then he lets his head fall heavy to the side. “Let’s do it.”

Stein breathes out and tastes the heat of his exhale smolder against his tongue. “Okay,” he says, and he turns his head to brush his lips against the curve of Spirit’s throat. He can feel the edge of the other’s inhale under his lips as clearly as beneath his hand, even before he lets his touch slide down across Spirit’s chest; and then his fingers dip beneath the other’s waistband, and as Spirit’s fingers clench to a fist at the back of his coat Stein fits his fingers around the flushed heat of delicate skin and pulls up over him.

Spirit responds immediately. This is something Stein has never had before, no matter how much experimentation he took on during his time as a student; before this moment he would have thought there was nothing more intoxicating than the spread of Spirit’s bare skin laid out for his exploration at the point of a scalpel. But as Stein touches him Spirit’s back arches to bring him off the operating table, his head angles back to curve his throat to a smooth arc of tension, and Stein feels the heat course through him like a live current, rippling his body to life in a way he hadn’t known it could be. He can taste the heat of Spirit’s skin at his lips, can smell the sweet humidity of sweat dense in the air; under his grip Spirit’s cock is impossibly soft and breathtakingly hard at once, smooth as silk at his fingers and pressing with absolute force against the weight of his hold. Spirit fits perfectly against Stein’s hand, as if this is exactly how they were always meant to fit together, and when Stein draws up over Spirit’s length the motion comes with the easy instinct of breathing, as if this act is ingrained as deep into the reflex of his body as the pattern of his heartbeat.

Stein doesn’t think of himself. It is true that his pants are unfastened over his hips, that with Spirit pinned to the table beneath him his imagination might tilt and slide down the possibility of satisfaction for the arousal swelling to a fever pitch in his own veins; but his attention is far distant from his own physical form, even as his shoulders flex and his cock swells with want. It feels like an echo, as if his body is simply mirroring back the pleasure Stein is drawing through his weapon, and as Spirit’s breathing pulls to gasping strain Stein’s own runs faster, urged into startling speed even as all his attention is demanded by the fit of his fingers around Spirit’s cock and the work of his wrist flexing to pull smooth strokes across the other’s length. Stein feels like he’s glowing, like his body is struggling to contain the full scope of the heat resonating between himself and his weapon, and it’s then that Spirit seizes over a breath and groans Stein’s name past his lips. His fingers curl tight, his chest arches up to press flush to Stein’s, and Stein feels Spirit’s cock jump against the grip of his fingers as the other spills his orgasm across his stomach. Stein glances down to see his hold still tight around Spirit’s length, to watch the reflexive motion of the other’s hips stuttering to thrust against his hold, and then he looks back up again as the first tension of release melts into heavy-lidded satisfaction in Spirit’s expression. His lashes fall over his eyes, his lips part over a sigh of pleasure, and for a moment Stein stays right where he is, leaning in over Spirit as his weapon breathes into the spreading relief of satisfaction.

Spirit blinks before Stein does. Stein is still leaning over him, his hand still bracing around Spirit’s slow-softening cock; he sees the color flush darker over Spirit’s cheeks and the shift of the other’s eyes as embarrassment pulls his gaze away from Stein’s level attention. Spirit lifts his hand from where he landed himself with a grip at Stein’s hip and draws it up to push his fingers through his hair; it doesn’t need it, and his hand is trembling with enough force that Stein doesn’t think it would help anyway, but he refrains from commenting.

“Well.” Spirit blinks again. His gaze slides back up to meet Stein’s, although his face is still dark with embarrassment. “It’s your turn now, huh?”

Stein doesn’t look away. “If you want.”

Spirit snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous, Stein.” He loosens his hold from Stein’s hip; Stein can feel the motion of the other’s hand sliding across his stomach, rumpling his shirt as Spirit reaches for the front of his pants. “I didn’t come here just so you could get me off.”

“No?” Stein says, as blandly as he can; and then Spirit’s fingers slide underneath his clothes, and in the first electricity of contact he forgets teasing, and speech, and breath itself for the heat that courses sudden tension through him.

Spirit’s fingers slide up into Stein’s hair. “No,” he growls. “I wanted to get you off too.” And his fingers slide around Stein’s shaft, and Stein’s head comes forward under its own weight as he rasps a ragged breath from the friction of Spirit’s hand moving over him.

Spirit moves quickly. Stein tends towards a firmer grip for himself, on those rare occasions that he bothers to satisfy the urges that usually express themselves better with blade and blood, but Spirit’s lighter hold and faster motion is dizzying his thoughts as quickly as it grants color and life and heat to every beat of his heart in his chest. He can feel his blood circulating, rushing with speed through his veins to flush the pallor of his skin and illuminate the network of nerves interlacing through his body. His breathing is coming faster, speeding towards a breathless haste he rarely feels even in the midst of a fight, and his body is going so incandescent with heat that he can feel the weight of his clothes trapping the warmth to wrap itself back against him. Spirit is still lying beneath him, Stein can hear the catch of the other’s breathing fitting to a rhythm with his own, and his fingers are wandering through Stein’s hair, sliding through the locks and drawing up to cradle the metal of the screw that runs through Stein’s head.

Stein takes a breath that comes loud in his throat, rasping with a friction to answer the heat of Spirit’s touch at his scalp, and he draws his hand up from Spirit’s hip to press to the other’s stomach instead. His fingers slide up, working under the loose of Spirit’s rumpled shirt to trace over the shape of the other’s body beneath him, to follow the paths of skin long-since healed from the crimson Stein laid down across it. Stein can feel Spirit’s body heat radiant against him, prickling against his fingertips as if it is chasing back a cold so long-held it has become a part of Stein’s very existence, and then Spirit’s fingers slide up over him and Stein’s body tightens all together, legs and back and shoulders and belly all pulling taut on expectation. Stein grasps at an inhale, dragging it into his lungs as his fingers flex against Spirit’s stomach, and then he lets the breath go into a “ _Senpai_ ” that bleeds into a keening note of heat as pleasure breaks over him. His hips jerk up and forward, his cock spills over Spirit’s stroking grip, and Stein gasps the rhythm of a sob into Spirit’s shoulder and presses the shape of his hand to the warmth of the other’s body beneath him.

Stein collects the fragments of himself back together with deliberate care. It’s not a unique experience, although it’s the first time he’s found himself so scattered by something so pleasant; he’s well experienced in the process of retrieving the underlying principles of his identity and fitting them one against the other until he has recalled what and why and who he is. It takes some time, though he’s in no position to have any means of tracking how long, but Spirit is still with him when he comes back to himself. They’re pressed together over the operating table, Stein tilted far forward and Spirit lying beneath him; Spirit has settled his hand gently at Stein’s hip, as if to brace him, while his other is still idly smoothing Stein’s hair around the metal rod that runs through his head. There’s no hesitation in Spirit’s touch against the screw; Stein isn’t even sure he realizes what he’s doing, for how casual the contact is. Stein stays still as he is for a moment, his face pressed close to Spirit’s neck and his attention wandering the strands of hair made fascinating by too-much proximity, but Spirit must sense his return, because his hand stills in Stein’s hair, and his neck tightens as his head angles fractionally towards Stein against him.

“Stein?” His hand slides over the back of Stein’s head to smooth the other’s hair against his neck. “Are you with me?”

Stein considers the question, frames the shape of it against the constant, humming static of his thoughts; and then he draws himself up, and he lifts his head so he can look down into the waiting attention of Spirit’s blue eyes.

“Yes,” Stein says. “I’m with you, senpai.” Spirit’s mouth flickers towards a smile nearly startled by its own sincerity, and Stein leans in over him again to fit his mouth where it was always made to land.


End file.
